November 15, 2011

Chinese researchers achieved a major breakthrough in the race to battle influenza by using NVIDIA Tesla GPUs to create the world's first computer simulation of a whole H1N1 influenza virus at the atomic level.

Researchers at the Institute of Process Engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS-IPE) are using molecular-dynamics simulations as a "computational microscope" to peer into the atomic structure of the H1N1 virus. Using the Mole-8.5 GPU-accelerated supercomputer, which includes more than 2,200 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, researchers were able to simulate the whole H1N1 influenza virus, enabling them to verify current theoretical and experimental understandings of the virus.

"The Mole-8.5 GPU supercomputer is enabling us to perform scientific research that simply was not possible before," said Dr. Ying Ren, assistant professor at CAS-IPE. "This research is an important step in developing more effective ways to control epidemics and create anti-viral drugs."

Studying bacteria and viruses in laboratory experiments is difficult because reactions are often too fast and delicate to capture. And computer simulations of these systems had previously been beyond the reach of supercomputers, due to the complexity of simulating billions of particles with the right environmental conditions.

The CAS-IPE researchers made the simulation breakthrough by developing a molecular dynamics simulation application that takes advantage of GPU acceleration. It was run on the Mole-8.5 GPU supercomputer, which is comprised of 288 server nodes. The system was able to simulate 770 picoseconds per day with an integration time step of 1 femtosecond for 300 million atoms or radicals.

Related Stories

Recommended for you

Short telomeres—the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes—have been previously linked to increased risk of death from heart disease. Now, research by scientists at UC San Francisco and the Veterans Affairs Medical ...

Researchers led by ETH Professor Martin Fussenegger at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) in Basel have produced artificial beta cells using a straightforward engineering approach.

Medical students are taught that once infected with Toxoplasma gondii—the "cat parasite"—then you're protected from reinfection for the rest of your life. This dogma should be questioned, argue researchers in an Opinion ...

A team of scientists has uncovered details of the cellular mechanisms that control the direct programming of stem cells into motor neurons. The scientists analyzed changes that occur in the cells over the course of the reprogramming ...

Loss of a key protein leads to defects in skeletal development including reduced bone density and a shortening of the fingers and toes—a condition known as brachydactyly. The discovery was made by researchers at Penn State ...

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC have engineered a protein that reverses carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning in mice, a discovery that could potentially lead to the creation of the first ...

0 comments

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.